There are a variety of commercially available device holders and stand assemblies for use with mobile phones, PDAs and other types of portable electronic devices. These device holders and stand assemblies cover various designs that provide different functions such as protecting, restraining and enabling hands free use of specific electronic devices. Many designs have limited versatility.
For instance, many commercially available stand assemblies are designed for use in either landscape or portrait viewing of the display screens of the electronic devices, but not both, which limits functional versatility. Indeed, many electronic devices such as iPads and iPhones, for example, are designed with GUI (graphical user interface) screens that are automatically adjusted to landscape or portrait viewing mode depending on the orientation of the device. With stand assemblies that enable only portrait or landscape orientation, hands-free viewing of portable electronic devices with both portrait and landscape screen displays is not possible. Moreover, for stand assembly designs that do allow both portrait and landscape orientations, the stand support structures are typically complex and complicated and require a user to physically adjust the stand assembly structure for either portrait or landscape orientation.
Another disadvantage to some commercially available stand assembly designs is that the incline angle of the stand is limited to one angle and cannot be adjusted. This limits versatility of use of the stand assembly in certain instances where hands free viewing of a portable electronic device would be useful at a relatively flat incline angle to properly view the display screen when, for instance, the user is in close proximity to the device and looking down at the device, or in other instances, where the user is relatively far from the device or the device is disposed at a position relatively close to eye level where a higher incline angle would be useful to properly view the display screen.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide a more functional stand assembly for electronic devices such as electronic tablet computers, mobile phones, PDAs, and other portable electronic devices, which would provide a more versatile adjustable support assembly enabling adjustment over a wide range of viewing angles in both landscape and/or portrait orientations.